PixlBit

Mark and I spent quite a bit of time in Gears of War: Judgment today, but i think both of us have had enough. Then I popped in Namco Museum Virtual Arcade and played Sky Kid and Sky Kid Deluxe, and then finally got started on Stacking. Details below. 

So Gears of War: Judgment. This game is like the little brother of Gears of War 3. It is lesser in several ways. First is the campaign, which has lots of short levels in tight spaces. Then there's Survival (Hoard) Mode, which also has fairly small arenas to play in, and which limits your weapons to the ones attached to your chosen player type and doesn't let you pick up anything else on the map. It all spells one thing to me. Short development time. I'm thinking People Can Fly (a great developer btw) weren't given the kind of time that Gears 3 got. But, I'm pretty satisfied with the almost 30 hours I put into this game. All the basic mechanics, voice work, and visuals were exactly what I expected from a Gears game. My only complaint, really, were the limitations put on Survival Mode. That mode alone in Gears 3 had Mark and I playing for months. Here, it lasted about half a day and ended in disapointment and frustration. 

Then I popped in Namco Museum Virtual Arcade and looked over the games. I played all of these games earlier this year, but I wanted to play Sky Kid and Sky Kid Deluxe again. This is, apparently, the first time these two games have been on any collection. Sky Kid is a side-scrolling flying game that reminds me of Barnstorming for the Atari 2600. It's a bit better though - better graphics, better control, and more interesting gameplay. You move right to left and steer a little WWI style airplane. You can speed up or slow down and shoot. If you get shot, you can point the stick up and mash the shoot button and possibly recover and keep flying. Great idea! About 2/3rd through the level, shooting at planes and ground anti-air targets, you have to pick up a bomb on the ground and then drop it on a target. After that you land your plane - end of the level and then a score tally. Then it's off to mission two. I really like the controls of this game. You can slow down to let pursuing planes get ahead of you so you can shoot them. Nice tactic! Of course, this being a coin op arcade game, it is a bit challenging. I got past mission two, but got tired of dying a lot. Sky Kid Deluxe is much the same game with better sound and graphics. 

Then I loaded up Stacking. This is a Double Fine game from several years ago that I've always been meaning to play.The basic mechanic of the game involves nesting dolls. Each character, and yourself, is a nesting doll, and you can jump inside them, when you're smaller, and control them. You can talk to them too. Getting inside certain ones unlocks challenges and extra story content that is saved in your hobo friend's lair below the railway station (yea, that's weird). The main quest is about reuniting a family that has been torn apart by poverty and child labor. It seems to take place in a kind of 19th century Dickens London. 

What's been fun so far is trying out the special ability each of the various nesting dolls has. Some are just fun, and some are attached to puzzles that can be solved. I found one nesting doll that led me to his sister and then his mother. Nesting them all together solved a puzzle. Some are just fun though. I ended the night using a train conductor whose special ability was to dash forward making train sounds. 

I'm going to have fun with this one next weekend when I get farther. So far I've just done the first mission in the train station, and then spent some time trying to find the unique nesting dolls and special challenges in that area before moving on to the air ship. 

That's about it.